Principal earned admiration and respect locally, nationally

For several decades, Bonnie Pryor was the face of St. Cecilia School in Omaha.

She was the person students respected, loved and sometimes feared. She was the mentor other educators looked up to. She was the glue for a closely bonded school and parish community, those who knew her said.

With more than five decades under her belt as a teacher and principal at St. Cecilia, Pryor left her mark on the parish and influenced and inspired thousands.

Father Norman Hunke, a former pastor of St. Cecilia Parish, described Pryor as strong, loving and wise – a woman of faith.

She was “recognized as the queen bee of all Catholic school principals, held in the highest regard and the greatest respect,” said Father Hunke, who worked closely with Pryor during his 10 years with the parish and who will serve as homilist at her funeral.

The 90-year-old retired educator died Sept. 4 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

A wake service in Omaha was scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, at the 72nd Street Chapel of John A. Gentleman Mortuaries and Crematory. A funeral Mass will be at 9:30 a.m. at St. Cecilia Cathedral. The parish is offering a livestream of the funeral through a link on its website.

Pryor was recognized nationally as a leader in Catholic education. She served as vice-chair, secretary and president of the National Catholic Educational Association and was honored with the National Distinguished Principal Award from the U.S. Department of Education in 1985. In 1987 she was named one of America’s most influential people in Catholic education.

To Anne Fangman, who grew up with Pryor as her principal, Pryor was the person who gave every student a candy bar on his or her birthday.

“She’d call our names on the loudspeaker and say it’s our birthday and then have us come down and get that. That was always a big deal for everybody,” said Fangman, who now teaches middle school science at St. Cecilia.

Pryor was a staple in the school and parish community and fostered a family-like atmosphere there, Fangman said.

The principal’s name became synonymous with St. Cecilia, her former student said.

“I don’t know of many people who – at least when I went to school – when you hear St. Cecilia, don’t think of her.”

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Pryor worked well with everyone, Father Hunke said, “whether it was a banker or the poorest kid in the school. She had a strong faith, and that drove her.”

“She was great with the kids,” he said. “They were afraid of her, but they respected her and they knew that she cared.”

Pryor began teaching at the parish in 1956 and became a principal in 1972.

In 1995, when Father Hunke arrived at the parish and faced numerous challenges, Pryor “was instrumental in helping me to figure out how to be a good pastor and a good rector. We talked often, almost daily.”

“As far as I can recall, we never had an argument,” the now-retired priest said. “We disagreed on a few things, but we both knew our respective roles and respected each other.”

Some of her former students, inspired by Pryor and others, went on to become educators, including Fangman and several other teachers at St. Cecilia.

Future administrators learned under her tutelage, including Barbara Marchese, now principal of St. Vincent de Paul School in Omaha, and David Peters, now head of school at Mount Michael Benedictine School in Elkhorn.

“There’s a lot of people, not just in the St. Cecilia community but in the Omaha archdiocese, who have been touched by her,” Fangman said.

“It’s hard for me not to canonize her,” her former pastor said. “She was just a very special lady in my book.”

“She certainly left her mark and continues to do so.”

Pryor was preceded in death by her husband, John; parents Charles and Loretta Maxwell; and brothers Chuck, Marty, Larry and John.

Survivors include her son, Michael; daughter-in-law, Jackie; siblings Mary Beth (Sister Duchesne) and Maddy; grandchildren, Matthew (Haley), John (Michelle) and Kate.

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